If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.

June 19, 2007

The morality of using animals in medical research

The people who say using animals in drug research is wrong amaze me. What do they suggest scientist do then?

If they are so against their use in experiments then these individuals should NEVER visit hospitals or a pharmacy anymore. This is because at one stage or the other animal experiment were used to develop almost every drug. I know this being a Masters student in pharmacy. For example during the development of the much sought after chemotherapy drugs for cancer a lot of rats are intentially mutated at the zygote stage to be born with cancer so that the new drug can be tested.

If scientist did not do such things , medicine would never have progressed so far as it has. Many drugs in neural disorders like Huntington's disease have been successfully developed with the use of guinea pig brain cells. I ask these activists:

Would you rather save the lives of 10 rats and watch as even just one human die of a horrible disease?

Sometimes their avid protests make me wonder where their allegiances lie. With humans or with animals (that don't actually give a damn about them, which is ironic.

The activists argue "we are all God's creatures so we (humans) don't have the right to do that". well I got news for you. The last time I checked there existed such a thing called a food chain. If the "law' they proposed existed then lions should not kill zebras, snakes should not bite people , sharks should not bite swimmers - but no they don't observe this little law because it does not exist. Its a matter of who is higher up the food chain. every species does all that is possible to ensure its continued existence, that includes the good things and the ugly but still necessary. Bottle nose dolphins, otherwise friendly will KILL papooses when they threaten their existence. Humans can and should use other species to ensure their human survival.

Activists argue that humans CAN volunteer for testing, with the right incentive. Well, no human will accept to be infected with cancer voluntarily to conduct a test! One thing that should be understood is that most of the subjects in the tests do not actually survive or have to be put down due to their state of misery.Sometimes living brain tissue is needed in these tests. Now who is going to volunteer for that? Rats being one of the few species with a physiological make up similar to humans (contrary to the assertions of evolutionists) have to fill this role. It is even treasonous in some sense to even suggest such a course of action.

"Sacrifice the human but save that rat!" That sounds wrong on so many levels.

It's not like the rat is an endangered species or anything like that. I think probably dogs and rats rank very high on the over-breading species list. Unless someone comes up with a viable alternative (like a tissue incubator?) then the conclusion is simple, animals will die for humans (on the kitchen and lab table)

2 comments:

The answer is we have no other choice, and thus "Yes" - especially with laboratory strain-types of animals (mice, rats, rabbits). In the end, there is no other way to fully understand physiology and physiopathology, at the cellular and molecular levels. As for in vitro cells and cell culture - these are very useful as well ... but they remain "isolated" and thus can never provide all the answers (besides - cells have to come from somewhere, eh?)